Boycotts and Dixie Chicks: Creative Political Participation at Home and Abroad

This book introduces the concept of creative political participation. On occasion, individuals seeking public action but lacking established political institutions must cooperate in an innovative manner to achieve their goals. This is creative political participation and it differs from traditional electoral politics, social movements, interest groups, and other varieties of political action. McFarland discusses creative participation on environmental, political corruption, consumer, and transnational protest issues. Examples include the formation of public interest lobbies, individual commitment to recycling, anti-corruption demonstrations in contemporary rural China, community action in 1890s Wisconsin; consumer boycotts of Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, the Nestle Corporation, and the Dixie Chicks music group; 'œcolor revolutions'� and transnational fair trade and transparency activism.

Andrew S. McFarland is Professor of Political Science and Fellow of the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He is author of several notable books including, most recently, Neopluralism: The Evolution of Political Process Theory (University Press of Kansas 2004).